Welcome to My New Home!

If this is your first time visiting, you’re probably all, “What new home? You never even invited me to your old home!” and then I’ll be all, “I must have typed your email address wrong on Evite!” But, you’re more welcome to go snoop through my medicine cabinets and rifle through my drawers back at The Dusty Parachute any time you like. I’ve listed some of my ‘readers’ favorites’ here, because that’s the kind of considerate hostess that I am.

So, why the big change? It goes waaaayyyy back to the Mom 2.0 Summit I was at last weekend. Remember, the one where I bombarded y’all on Instagram with pictures of everyone looking super cute and citrusy in Florida?

The photo you see when you look up “Florida Blogger Conference” in the dictionary.

Well, it’s pretty much Mom 2.0’s fault.

More specifically, it’s the “It’s Yours to Tell: How to Restart, Expand or Pivot Your Story” session’s fault.

Even more specifically, it’s Wendi Aarons’s fault.

Here’s the edited version of the story, (for the Director’s Cut, buy me a couple of glasses of wine and I’ll act out all the deleted scenes for you in person, including the part where Wendi began actively seeking revenge on me after she claims I ‘assaulted’ her by using my Flonase inhaler while making ‘intimate eye contact’ with her.)

There I was, sitting in the front row of the “Pivot” session, soaking in all of the experiences and wisdom of the panel (Jessica Ashley, Jill Krause and Wendi Aarons.) The session was all about pivoting, making changes small and large, to your blog, writing and life. I have to admit, my main reason for going to the session was not to pivot.

I had already pivoted, dammit! Like when I started my blog and doing social media consulting three years ago after being a stay at home mom for ten years. Haven’t I done enough pivoting for my 40s?!

But as people were asking the panel about changes they were considering for their blogs and careers, a question that had been nagging me way deep down somehow gave itself voice, into a microphone in front of a room full of people, no less.

Was “The Dusty Parachute” still the right direction for me?

The whole point of “The Dusty Parachute” was to be an anonymous blog documenting my path to discovering what I wanted to do with my life (what color is my parachute?) and trying to get a job once my kids were both in school full time.

But now, almost three years later, not only is my parachute no longer dusty, I’ve now discovered that the opportunities out there are so vast and exciting that I don’t have to settle for just one color of a parachute.

The few times I’ve brought this up to people, they’ve responded, “But I love your blog name!” and I did too, so I just carried on.

But this time the response was Wendi, looking as deep into my eyes as I did to her when I Flonase-assaulted her the previous day, saying, “YES! Yes, you should definitely change it!” And the rest of the panel agreed.

When a panel full of women you respect and admire gives you the gift of honest advice, you take it. So here I am, merely a week later, introducing my new blog, SusanneKerns.com.

And it’s not just the name that has changed, it’s the intention.

I also attended a session where, Lisa from Smacksy spoke about how she just celebrated her 8th straight year of blogging EVERY SINGLE DAY. There were audible gasps in the room when she said that. Even more impressive was her reasoning behind it: the gift of giving herself a daily writing practice.

Not to go viral. Not to have something to sell to another publication. Just to practice writing.

That is how I started my blog, but then I had a post go viral within a month of starting and felt the need to hit that high again.

With this new blog, I’m going back to basics. I’ll be using this as a place to capture daily thoughts, ideas and inspirations which may, or may not, eventually be refined into pieces that I can submit other places so I can earn enough money to continue to fund my blogging conference habit.

I hope you end up enjoying it as much as I do. You’re welcome here any time – the door is always open. Excuse the mess as I unpack boxes and do some rearranging over the next few weeks. Comments and feedback are always welcome….as are housewarming gifts of Chardonnay and Bulleit bourbon.

Personal branding is a big deal..this is hard. But, long term I always say go with your name although I too loved TDP. I struggled when I named my photography business way back when but, glad I did what I did and with a simple logo too -all of that is ‘spensive. And, if you need new pics. Hit me up but only shooting for my special people right now. 😜